“Alright, where are we, and did you just mind control me?”
Elkay rubbed his face as his eyes faded from a bright yellow back to his normal dim red. Most Rethans had noticeably bright eyes, and it seemed that, now everyone was some sort of deity, everyone else’s eyes also glowed slightly. But because Elkay had been disconnected from the Rethan Secret, his eyes had lost their glow significantly, and apparently, despite the fact that Amalgam Mimics were supposed to have the brightest eyes, Elkay was still trying to relearn how to make his eyes glow again.
“Don’t know, and yes.”
Not that it mattered. Eyesight was pretty useless right now. Wherever Elkay, Elksia and Eksi were right now, everything was smothered in a grey fog, only allowing about 10m of vision in any direction. More worryingly, there were random screeching sounds echoing all around them. Eksi quickly realized the screeching was coming from psionic snares, designed to send out alarms if they detected the use of telepathy or telekinesis nearby, and Eksi’s aura-based powers had set off pretty much every single snare in a 40m radius around them.
However, despite having clearly set off an alarm, nothing was coming to check on them. There was no one around.
“Why did you…” Elkay growled, but quickly stopped and took a deep breath. He was feeling angry and violated, but he knew Eksi well, there had to have been a good reason why Eksi did what he did. Getting aggressive would be a bad idea. “Why did you mind-control me, Eksi? What is going on?”
Eksi frowned as Elksia put him down and started wandering around. The Time Drake needed to do her thing, and Eksi was aware that, despite his vast psionic prowess, he was a bit of a liability right now.
“That Mindeater guy was going to mind-control you and make you attack Litvir. Your mental defences are normally really good, but that bastard uses brute force tactics and would have just shattered your brain and taken over, and someone as powerful as you under someone else’s control would have guaranteed Litvir’s death and probably mine, Elksia’s and Tah’s deaths as well. I took control first so it couldn’t, because Elksia’s time strings suggested that gave Litvir the highest chance of surviving and would prevent the most deaths.”
“But… it got Litvir anyway.”
“Yeah, but, as far as we can tell, Litvir might still be alive. Right, Elksia?”
Elksia didn’t answer. She had headed off in a specific direction, into the fog. Thankfully, on the mental landscape, Elksia was making herself stand out like a beacon. While that did put her at risk, when it came to self-survival, Elksia was essentially unkillable, because she could detect and alter microthreads, meaning she could keep on manipulating short duration time until she found an outcome she liked. The problem was extending this to other people, because, with so many strings going on at once, testing desired outcomes became harder and harder.
Eksi frowned some more, then grabbed Elkay by the hand and dragged him off, both of them following Elksia.
“I am sorry, by the way. I hate mind-controlling people, but I felt like I had no choice. Doing so also kinda allowed us to chase after that bastard in the first place, since I made you copy their weird portal powers.”
Elkay sighed. “Well, considering the circumstances, I forgive you. I would appreciate some warning if you do it again, though…” Elkay trailed off briefly. “How did you control me so easily?”
“I distracted you with nice thoughts of you snuggling with Teekay then took over while you were daydreaming. You should know, you use an abridged version of Skyan telepathy, the only real difference is the speed, range and efficiency I can do it at. And that I use nice thoughts rather than mean thoughts…”
Eksi realized Elkay had slowed down and let go of his hand. Eksi reached back to grab Elkay, then wished he hadn’t.
“Sorry, I think I am stressed…” Elkay muttered as he shook his hands, a bid to get rid of the gunk that had formed on his skin. “This… is not my normal slime though, weirdly.”
“Do you know why you’re making slime?” Eksi asked.
“Right now? I think it is a protective measure. The temperature in here keeps on fluctuating and this keeps me cool.”
Eksi frowned yet again. Elkay was right, it was really, really warm. Hot and sticky and humid. But freezing winds would occasionally blow through.
“You’re weird. But we need to pick up our pace.”
“Agreed.”
Elksia had gotten quite far ahead. She could clearly see something that Elkay and Eksi couldn’t. A single, immutable thread. But a twisted, broken one. A thread warped so badly that Elksia needed to inspect it up close.
As Elksia approached though, she felt nausea well up in her mouth. There were horrible, empty cocoons everywhere. The time threads informed her that the Mindeater had been capturing people, and slowly sucking them dry for aeons. But the monster itself was… gone. Whatever had happened here in recent memory was blurred to Elksia. As if another Time Drake, or someone with time powers in general, had acted here and erased their presence, clouding these recent events.
Suddenly, Elksia tripped over something horrible and slimy. She couldn’t help but scream. She’d been so distracted that she hadn’t noticed her own threads. To surprise her further, Elkay somehow immediately teleported to her side, bringing Eksi with him.
“Dude, since when could you teleport like that?” Eksi hissed.
“I mean… I have been practising borrowing Teekay’s powers for a while…” Elkay explained. “But that was 100% instinctual, because I thought Elksia was in danger.”
“You-”
“I am a freak. Yes, we have already established that…” Elkay immediately fell silent. He’d noticed something. The same thing Elksia noticed. Something strange had been here. But he couldn’t tell what either.
Whatever had happened though, something had killed the colossal black being that was the Mindeater. All of its arms and its head had been cut off, cleanly and efficiently. Elksia hazarded a guess that psionic blades had caused the dismemberment, since the wounds were so clean and somewhat cauterized. That didn’t really matter though as they circled around and spotted a familiar purple cape.
“Litvir! You’re not dead!”
Eksi did a quick scan of Litvir’s mind. He was alive but unconscious. However, his eyes were half open and he seemed to be staring ahead at a certain position. There were two puncture marks on Litvir’s neck that were weeping but no longer bleeding. Litvir’s thoughts though were utterly scrambled, indicating that Litvir was in shock. He was somewhat stable, all things considered, but he needed medical attention.
Elkay kneeled down by Litvir’s side and took off his cape, so he could inspect him and make sure no bones were broken before he moved Litvir’s body. Elksia though intervened and pushed Elkay away, then picked Litvir up herself.
“Make the portal. So we can go home.”
“Um…” Elkay blinked. “I… I do not know how to do that. I admittedly have no idea where we are or how we even got here.”
“Ah piss… I didn’t leave that memory in there. I’m gonna have to mind-control you again to get us home…” Eksi admitted. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“I do not have a choice. Just do me a favour and make it quick. And make me think of something nice, because this place is horrible.”
Eksi smiled, ever so slightly. He forced a cute image of Teekay and Elkay holding hands while watching a sunset into Elkay’s mind, forcing him to start daydreaming and lose focus. Eksi then jumped into Elkay’s head, making his eyes glow yellow. Once Eksi was in control, he reinserted a handful of memories, then forced Elkay to start copying his actions. The two of them waved their hands, and a black portal formed in front of them.
With a snarl, Elksia dragged Litvir through the portal. Eksi jumped into Elkay’s back and made him walk through as well, before sealing the portal shut. Now they were back on Savepoint, everyone immediately rushed Litvir over to one of the recovery rooms, where the more medically knowledgeable members of the Thantir were waiting.
“Don’t worry, Litty, we got you…”